Can An Astronomer Have Faith In The Bible?

I guess when your state hosts a museum of creationism and is about to help fund some kind of wacky Noah’s ark theme park, you might be a little over-sensitive.  That’s clearly part of what led the folks at the University of Kentucky to rule out C. Martin Gaskell for a position as director of their observatory.

Now he’s suing.  According to the New York Times:

Dr. [Moshe] Elitzur [who was involved in hiring decisions], in his deposition, said he feared that bad publicity could arise from bringing Dr. Gaskell to the university, which is less than 100 miles from the Creation Museum, in Petersburg, Ky.

“There’s no way you can avoid the headline in The Herald-Leader saying ‘U.K. hires a creationist for public outreach,’ ” Dr. Elitzur remembered saying.

Well that would be a problem if it were true.  The fact is that it’s a little hard to figure out this Gaskell fellow.  He has a fascinating piece online called “Modern Astronomy, the Bible, and Creation” that he wrote while a professor at the University of Texas at Austin (my alma mater – Hook ‘em ‘Horns!).

From a quick reading, it’s clear that he’s no young earth creationist.  I don’t agree with any of his conclusions and the man could sure do with some exposure to biblical scholarship.  Yet none of that means he’s unfit to run an observatory.  I don’t know whether he deserved to be hired or not.  I do know that his beliefs don’t necessarily have to be a problem.

I’m well used to the fact that very intelligent people can hold very irrational beliefs.  Fortunately, most scientists do not.  As long as the few who do put empirical evidence before before bible stories, then we can’t hold their ludicrous beliefs against them.  The fact that he was explicitly asked about his religion during his interview opened up a huge, unnecessary can of worms.  Open cans of worms always spew forth lawyers.

I recommend you read Gaskell’s piece.  It could serve as a case study of how someone with a highly developed scientific intellect overextends biblical apologetics in order to maintain a faith that there are really no contradictions at all.